18 Comforting Lasagna Recipes We Love

By Food & Wine
Updated June 19, 2019
©Kristen Stevens
There’s nothing quite like homemade lasagna, whether you’re a tomato sauce and Italian sausage evangelist (with extra shredded mozzarella and fresh basil on top, please) or prefer a veggie version with creamy white béchamel—you know, the kind that bubbles over onto the baking dish and creates a delicious crust. It’s the ultimate comfort food, and we’re constantly working on new recipes to celebrate it. You can spin lasagna with harissa and lamb, or swap ricotta and sausage for goat cheese and chorizo—read on for some of our favorites.
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Grandma's Lasagna

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Although we tested three different Bolognese-style lasagnas with creamy béchamel sauce, we decided that the definitive lasagna had to have tomato sauce, chunks of meat, shredded mozzarella and creamy ricotta cheese.

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Zucchini Lasagna

Abby Hocking
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Comforting and hearty, this lasagna uses roasted zucchini slices in place of the usual pasta. Roasting the zucchini preserves the texture of the vegetable and keeps the finished dish from becoming soggy.

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Wild Mushroom Lasagna

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In this decadent lasagna, store-bought fresh pasta sheets are layered with wild mushrooms in a creamy wine sauce.

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Pumpkin Lasagne

Karen Mordechai
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No need to roast fresh pumpkin for this dish (although you certainly could); using canned unseasoned pumpkin puree is much quicker, and it works just fine. Like most lasagnes, this one is easier to cut if left to set for ten minutes or so before serving.

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Free-Form Sausage-and-Three-Cheese Lasagna

Quentin Bacon
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This gooey lasagna is packed with cheese and sausage. The style is called free-form because the pasta can be arranged in different ways—for instance, folded over the filling—instead of traditionally layered.

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Celery Root and Mushroom Lasagna

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“In Marche, we only make lasagna for special occasions like Christmas,” Fabio Trabocchi says. For this streamlined version of his luxe lasagna in bianco (white lasagna), he layers flat noodles with a supremely rich sauce, along with a root-vegetable ragù, fresh mozzarella and whole basil leaves.

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Lasagna-Style Baked Pennette with Meat Sauce

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This hearty, meaty baked pasta is chef Tom Valenti's ultimate make-ahead meal. "It's actually better the next day," he says. "I always make more than I think we'll need—and we always eat all of it."

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Vegetable-and-Ravioli Lasagna

Rick Poon
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Fresh spinach ravioli are a clever shortcut for making lasagna: Each ravioli is already a mini layer of pasta, cheese and vegetable. This recipe is especially fast to make using pre-roasted or grilled vegetables from the deli counter.

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White Lasagna Cupcakes

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Do lasagna cupcakes sound like a great idea or just plain wrong? Either way, they’re part of a savory cupcake trend—but feel free to call them mini lasagnas, too.

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Flatbread Lasagna

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This lasagna swaps pita or naan for lasagna noodles, to tasty results.

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Lasagna with Mushrooms and Lamb Sausage

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Marcia Kiesel’s earthy, meaty lasagna features two types of mushrooms, rich mushroom stock, truffled pecorino cheese and spicy merguez lamb sausage.

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Broken Lasagna with Walnut Pesto

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“Whole-grain pasta is one of the easiest ways to sneak whole grains into your diet,” Heidi Swanson says. Her lasagna, made with noodles broken into 1-inch pieces, features a healthy pesto made with walnuts and basil.

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Pumpkin Lasagna with Ricotta and Swiss Chard

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This super-creamy lasagna is perfect for a vegetarian main course. What makes it especially unusual is that it’s made without tomato sauce.

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Après-Ski Lasagna

Victor Protasio
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Fresh basil brings brightness, sliced mushrooms lend earthiness and toothsome texture, and ricotta delivers the creaminess between the layers for this lasagna.

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Harissa-Lamb Skillet Lasagna

Justin Walker
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Chicken broth dials up the richness of this stovetop lasagna, while harissa and ground lamb add a modern, Middle Eastern twist.

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Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

Justin Chapple / Food & Wine
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Lighten up lasagna by using spaghetti squash as a stand-in for noodles. This version is meat-free, but if you wish, you can add cooked sausage to the marinara sauce.

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Chorizo-and-Goat Cheese Lasagna

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This flavorful lasagna is loaded with spicy chorizo and tangy goat cheese.

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Fast Rotisserie Chicken Lasagna

©Kristen Stevens
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Use leftover rotisserie chicken and you can have this lasagna prepped and in the oven in only 15 minutes.

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